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Hudak Tories roaring toward a majority: Poll

Hudak&rsquo;s support translates into 65 seats for the Conservatives in the
107-seat Legislature to 23 for the Liberals and 19 for the New
Democrats, a new poll shows.

By Robert BenzieQueen's Park Bureau Chief

Sun., June 26, 2011

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is roaring toward a majority win in the Oct. 6 provincial election thanks to a platform that is enticing voters, a new poll suggests.

The Forum Research survey found Hudak’s Tories at 41 per cent compared with 26 per cent for Premier Dalton McGuinty’s governing Liberals, 22 per cent for NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, and 8 per cent for Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

“There’s like an eight-year itch,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said in an interview, referring to McGuinty’s two terms in power.

“It’s really hard to get that third term. People just get tired of seeing the same people all the time,” said Bozinoff.

Because of the poll’s large sample size of 3,198 people, Forum was able to do a seat projection based on results from various regions across the province.

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Hudak’s support translates into 65 seats for the Conservatives in the 107-seat Legislature to 23 for the Liberals and 19 for the New Democrats.

Currently, the Liberals have 70 seats, the Conservatives have 25, the NDP has 10, and there are two vacancies that had been held by the Grits.

McGuinty’s approval rating sits at 36 per cent with almost two-thirds – 64 per cent – saying they disapprove of the job the premier is doing.

“They’ve built a lot of their strategy around the premier and that can boomerang on you,” said Bozinoff, noting the Liberals’ penchant for using the term “McGuinty government” in speeches and news releases.

In contrast, Hudak has a 53 per cent approval rating with 47 per cent disapproving and Horwath boasts a 59 per cent per cent approval to 41 per cent disapproval.

The interactive voice response telephone poll — conducted last Tuesday and Wednesday and considered accurate to within 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 — found that Hudak’s platform, released last month, is gaining traction.

Nearly nine out of 10 people — 86 per cent — like the HST cut on energy bills that both Hudak and Horwath are promising.

Almost two-thirds — 63 per cent — approve of letting electricity ratepayers opt out of using the smart meters that charge different prices for power depending on the time of day.

Nearly three-quarters — 73 per cent — agree with Hudak that newcomers to the province should be banned from collecting welfare until they have lived in Ontario for one year even though that policy could be unconstitutional.

And 70 per cent like his vow to make provincial inmates perform menial labour such as picking up litter along highways.

“I am impressed with how popular some of these things are. They (the Tories) appear to have a really good feel for the electorate,” said Bozinoff, pointing out that there will be pressure on the Liberals to make a similar splash when they release their platform, likely at a party convention on July 22-24.

The Liberals have countered that Hudak’s platform has “a $14 billion hole” in it over four years due to accounting chicanery.

“This is just chock-full of holes. It’s dishonest. It doesn’t deal in what I would call a forthright manner with the real challenges facing Ontario,” Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said last Wednesday.

Still, Changebook appears to be helping the Conservatives across the province — the survey found the Tories leading in every region, including the City of Toronto, where they are at 44 per cent to the Liberals’ 25 per cent and the NDP’s 20 per cent, and the Greens’ 7 per cent.

The Liberals currently have 19 of Toronto’s 23 seats with the NDP holding the other four. No provincial Tory has been elected within city limits since 1999.

Bozinoff said both Hudak and Horwath appear to be benefiting from the popularity in Ontario of their federal counterparts, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Jack Layton.

“Right now, this is looking like what happened a month ago in the federal election,” he said of the May 2 vote that saw the Conservatives win 73 seats in Ontario to the NDP’s 22 and the Liberals’ 11.

In that contest, the Tories won 44.4 per cent here to 25.6 per cent for the New Democrats, 25.3 per cent for the Liberals and 3.8 per cent for the Greens.

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